


Five Ways Spencer Reid Lets Himself Be Loved

by wilfredthepickle



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, m - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilfredthepickle/pseuds/wilfredthepickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And one way in which he someday hopes to love himself. [Implied underage, mentions of drug use, vague mentions of ReidxEthan and ReidxLila friendship.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ways Spencer Reid Lets Himself Be Loved

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while I was on heavy pain medication, so it's really weird and...weird. Don't judge me.

i.

The Reid family only ever celebrated Christmas properly once. It was back when William Reid was still living there - really _living_ there, not just existing at home and living his life in a completely different place. Diana was an atheist and didn't see the point, while William's work schedule was simply too hectic and unpredictable to ever try and organise a set time to sit down on Christmas day and act like a normal family. The one year they managed it, Spencer was seven, already beginning to feel his parent's marriage beginning to disintegrate, the lies they'd constructed for their son's wellbeing crumbling into pieces with each argument, each disapproving look, each and every manifestation of Diana's illness that her husband chose to ignore.

He remembered the evening vividly, even more vividly than usual with his gift of a nigh-perfect memory. They'd sat around the dinner table together, each member of the family having their own place. William, up the top of the table. Diana, perched at the other end, with a perfect, proud posture as she stared daggers into William's eyes. And Spencer, hunched over the table in the very middle of it all, left gazing at the empty seat opposite to him.

As the evening wore on, so did their nerves. William tried his best to soothe the subtle, accusatory barbs that Diana flung at him, but soon enough, he slammed his hand down on the table and shouted for her to _just pretend you don't hate me, for the sake of our son!_ Spencer watched him with wide, fearful eyes for the rest of the night, but Diana never made another mean-spirited quip at that dinner table again.

It had continued like that for a while longer, wearing the mask of a normal family, while they pretended to love each other cautiously, afraid that if they became too attached, they would shatter the feeling of normalcy they had begun to create. They let it continue that way for three more years, until one day those threads they had tried to hold onto had frayed so much that they simply snapped in half, and with them, William's will to continue projecting a façade. He left a day later, leaving both a letter and a lifetime of guilt and resentment for his son.

o o o

ii.

Spencer first met Ethan on his first day in college, surprised and strangely excited to find someone anywhere close to his own age. Upon talking to him further, he found that Ethan was sixteen years old, (four years older than Spencer's own) and had an IQ of one hundred and eighty-eight. Spencer didn't even try and bother to hide his relief at the fact that finally, finally, he knew someone who was smarter than him.

As their time together in college grew, so did their friendship, until it crossed those personal boundaries and they called it _dating_. They'd both known of the legal consequences when they took that leap; Ethan was seventeen, Spencer had just turned fourteen. It was wrong. It was immoral. It was _illegal_ , for god's sake. But Ethan loved Spencer, and as the attention-starved soul that he was, Spencer gave himself away. It didn't matter whether Spencer really loved Ethan back, because as long as Ethan continued to give him everything, Spencer would put on yet another mask and fake his way through their relationship until it had to end. The strain on them both eventually became too great, leaving them at an impasse. After one day of FBI training, Ethan left him, leaving him with nothing but a letter and a not-entirely disliked feeling of emptiness and isolation.

Looking back on it now, Spencer realised that they were simply objects to each other, neither one of them a fully tangible human being in each other's eyes. He still doesn't regret the time he spent with him, though. Ethan was the first real friend he'd ever had, and that means a lot to him.

o o o

iii.

Spencer always thinks of it as symbiotic relationship, if he's going to be completely honest. It worked like this; Spencer wanted someone to love him, and Gideon wanted someone to love. Once he started getting to know Gideon in more detail, the missing pieces of the puzzle began to slowly form a whole. When he found out through subtle interrogation that Gideon had a son, everything had suddenly clicked into place. Spencer could easily be that son. The process would be disgustingly simple, having done it countless other times. Subtly ask questions, acquire more information. Use it, create the mask, wear it. In hindsight, Gideon probably knew that he was being manipulated, but Spencer didn't care. He wanted - no, needed that affection. Some of the cadets in the FBI academy had cautiously suggested to him that what Spencer was really looking for was a paternal substitute in his mentor. Spencer had never confirmed it, but had never denied it either.

In the end, all that Spencer had left of Gideon was a letter, so maybe he really did want that _paternal substitute_ after all.

o o o

iv.

Lila was the first _girl_ that Spencer had ever really been with. He'd known girls, been acquaintances with a few in college, had built a good rapport with JJ and Elle, but Lila was the first that he'd ever gotten to know on a more personal level. After they'd solved her case, Spencer and her had kept up contact, surprisingly enough. It was mostly emails and letters, just about how they'd been and any interesting things that had happened, without crossing the border into romantic territory. At one point they even met up again, and the only real physical contact they shared was a hug when they met each other again. They continued talking and sharing stories with each other for just about a year, and then Tobias Hankel happened.

Lila obviously hadn't seen his story reported on the news, because when he finally checked his email after a month of being offline, he'd found several anxious emails from her, sitting there and waiting for a reply. He never did. Spencer simply couldn't find the confidence to reply back, not after his world had just been shattered. Not when he was still addicted to illegal narcotics. He could never tell Lila those things; what would she think of a man who'd sent his mother away to rot in a facility and then got himself abducted and addicted to drugs?

Eventually her emails and letters became less and less frequent, before stopping entirely about six months after Tobias. By then he was sober, but the cravings still hit him frequently, and nothing could help his nightmares and the feelings of shame about what had happened in that shack. He promised himself that when he was properly sober, when he was fixed, he'd find her again.

After a while, he realised that there are some things inside of you that just can't be fixed.

o o o

v.

The BAU underestimate Spencer. That much is clear, even to the detectives that they cross paths with on their various cases. Admittedly, Spencer doesn't do much to correct their image of him - the bumbling, awkward, danger-magnet Dr. Reid. Usually, he just exploits it to his advantage, and it's not something he's proud of.

Secretly, he likes the way that the team treat him. Sometimes it's condescending, sometimes it's frustrating, but it always makes him feel like someone truly appreciates him for who he really is. Which the BAU think they do. He knows that nobody would really appreciate it if he started acting more mature now, when he's gone too far into character that he can't pull himself back out. The team needs the sweet, nerdy, innocent genius, lest the balance of power be shifted and the team dynamics thrown off. The BAU needs their morality pet, the one among them who acts as an anchor for their emotional needs. If Spencer can't be pure and uncorrupted all the time, then who would the team look after and protect to ease their own problems?

The BAU team love Spencer, but they love a caricature, a mere act. Nobody really knows what's going on in the real Spencer Reid's mind, and he tells himself that he doesn't really mind if nobody ever does.

o o o

vi.

One day, Spencer knows that the lies he's told will get too much, that he'll be forced to confess and probably won't forgive himself. His mother, Ethan, Gideon, Lila, his team - they all deserve to know and love the real Spencer Reid. They're all good people; some broken, some patched up, but all of them are inherently _good._

But can he really love himself, knowing that he's deceived them all?

Spencer knows that there's nobody on the planet Earth that will ever know him fully except for himself. Late at night, when he's in the midst of a craving and is lying on his bed, scared to close his eyes for being assaulted with those violent memories, he knows that he will be the only person who will ever know who he really is, and that not even the strongest love can ever decode him entirely. It's true for all humans, he decides - there is only one person in the world who can ever fully love _every_ part of themselves, and it is you, _yourself._

He's not quite there yet, but he hopes that one day, he'll learn.


End file.
